The Seven Good Years

Why does a father have to protect his son?” I thought for a moment before answering. “Look,” I said as I stroked his cheek, “the world we live in can sometimes be very tough. And it’s only fair that everyone who’s born into it should have at least one person who’ll be there to protect him.

The writer is neither saint nor tzaddik nor prophet standing at the gate; he's just another sinner who has a somewhat sharper awareness and uses slightly more precise language to describe the inconceivable reality of our world.

He tells them that there is a line that separates killing bugs from killing frogs, and that no matter how hard it is, that line must never be crossed

Life gives me good advice, but sometimes I refuse to take it.

În seara aceea, stau în bucătăria casei înguste, beau o ceașcă cu ceai și mănânc o felie de pâine cu gem dulce de la generozitate și acru de la amintiri.

Povestea unui puști cu o mâzgălitură pe față care aducea a mustață, care aproape a omorât un om cu o umbrelă care aducea a pușcă, într-o operațiune secretă care aducea a război.

Me, when it comes to religion, I have no God. When I'm cool, I don't need anyone, and when I'm feeling shitty and this big empty hole opens up inside me, I just know there's never been a god that could fill it and there never will be.

When I ask him if he thinks there's a moral to his story, he says he's sure there must be, but doesn't know exactly what it is. "Maybe," he says after a short pause, "it's that this world is full of lizards, and even though there's nothing we can do about it, it is always helpful to find out how big they are.

Flights are expansive moments when the phone doesn't ring and the Internet doesn't work. The maxim that flying time is wasted time liberates me from my anxieties and guilt feelings, and it strips me of all ambitions, leaving room for a different sort of existence. A happy, idiotic existence, the kind that doesn't try to make the most of time but is satisfied with merely finding the most enjoyable way to spend it.

The maxim that flying time is wasted time liberates me from my anxieties and guilt feelings, and it strips me of all ambitions, leaving room for a different sort of existence. A happy, idiotic existence, the kind that doesn’t try to make the most of time but is satisfied with merely finding the most enjoyable way to spend it.

Why do you have to fly to Amsterdam?" he asked. "Is someone in your family ill?" I shook my head. "So what it is, a girl?" I nodded. "But it's not about her," I said. "It's just that I can't be here anymore." The pilot was silent for a moment, then asked, "Have you ever flown in a jump seat?" I managed to control my tears enough to say no.

The story I had written wasn't the creased, stit-smeared paper now sitting in the bottom of the trash can on the street. That page was just a pipeline through which I could transmit my feelings from my minds to his.

Me, when it comes to religion, I have no God. When I’m cool, I don’t need anyone, and when I’m feeling shitty and this big empty hole opens up inside me, I just know there’s never been a god that could fill it and there never will be. So even if a hundred rabbis pray for my lost soul, it won’t do them any good. I have no God, but my sister does, and I love her, so I try to show him some respect.

(given a choice between listening to Britney Spears and having a blocked aorta, I’d pick the latter),

Scriitorul nu e nici un sfânt, nici profet care profețește la porțile orasului; e un păcătos ca oricare altul, însă ceva mai lucid și dotat cu un limbaj ceva mai precis pentru a descrie realitatea de neconceput a lumii în care trăim.

Flights are expansive moments when the phone doesn’t ring and the Internet doesn’t work. The maxim that flying time is wasted time liberates me from my anxieties and guilt feelings, and it strips me of all ambitions, leaving room for a different sort of existence. A happy, idiotic existence, the kind that doesn’t try to make the most of time but is satisfied with merely finding the most enjoyable way to spend it.

Experience has taught me that there are some situations in which it's better to keep quiet. That is, I tried to keep quiet. Life gives me good advice, but sometimes I refuse to take it.

A waiter there told me that during the war, people who came in had a hard time choosing the right word when they wanted to order coffee. The word coffee, he explained, is different in Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian, and every innocent word choice was fraught with threatening political connotations. “To avoid trouble,” he’d said, “people started ordering espresso, which is a neutral Italian word, and overnight, we stopped serving coffee here and served only espresso.